The Knights are well on to the road to recovery from their first loss in the AAC, but will have to surmount one of their biggest obstacles from recent history on Friday–the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.
Dating back to their Conference USA roots, Tulsa has compiled a 5-2 record against UCF, winning the last four consecutive games. The matchup carries with it significant and emotional implications for both O’Leary and the seniors who have yet to beat their conference foe.
“It’s something that we gotta get done,” O’Leary said. “We lost to them twice in one year, once for the championship.”
In 2012 Tulsa head coach Bill Blankenship piloted his team to a late-season victory against UCF to wrest away home field advantage for the C-USA title game. The Golden Hurricane would ride their momentum a few weeks later when they met again for the C-USA Championship, winning 33-27 in overtime.
Newly elected team captains Josh Reese, Terrance Plummer and Clayton Geathers still feel the wounds from their past as they gear up for redemption. All three are seniors who are getting their last pass at a team who has tortured them.
“That’s the one team in-conference I’ve never beaten, and beating Southern Miss, Temple, all those but I’ve never beaten Tulsa, and that weighs on you as a player who’s won conference championships,” said Terrance Plummer. “You have one team that you’ve never beaten and so this year is an opportunity to go out there and finally get that win as a senior class.”
The games played in 2012 were both highly contested battles that could have easily gone either way. Clayton Geathers called it “smash-mouth” football, fueled by years of meaningful competition. UCF fans can expect more of the same on Friday, though Tulsa is a slightly different team in their AAC stint.
Currently owning a 2-7 record, the Golden Hurricane is not the ground-game force they were in 2012–instead featuring an explosive passing attack. Wide receiver Keevan Lucas has over 1,000 receiving yards already this season, and the offense has produced over 400 yards of production in four straight games.
It will be true test for the Knights’ secondary, who has been one of the more impressive units on the team this year. In all, O’Leary is simply seeking consistency from all aspects of the gameplan.
“Football is a ‘we’ game, but right now it’s coming down to ‘you’,” he said. “You can’t have ‘we’ unless we have ‘you’. Everybody’s gotta do their responsibility… so it adds up to ‘we’.”
In multiple ways this game will serve as a chance for healing–for the entire team who struggled last week, the first year starting quarterback who has yet to find a consistent approach, and for all of the seniors who are striving to remove the winless blemish from their record.
